Review of the Chieftec Polaris PPS-750FC 750W power supply. More gold! / Overclockers.ua

Chieftec has recently been actively updating its range of power supplies, offering more and more new lines. So, a couple of years ago, solutions from the Proton line appeared, and recently Photon with RGB backlighting and affordable Core with a “gold” certificate. It is worth mentioning the Chieftronic sub-brand, which is designed for gamers and enthusiasts. But the company did not stop there and brought to the market another series – Polaris, which, unlike Core, has a modular design. How it differs we will try to find out.

Chieftec Polaris 750W (PPS-750FC)

* – in advance.

The power supply comes in a dark box with a picture of the device on the front and electrical specifications on the back. Given that the packaging is universal and goes to three models at once, the possibilities of another 550- and 650-watt solutions are described. Our ward is 750 watts.

In the kit, the user will find instructions, a set of mounting screws, a set of detachable cables and a power cord.

Since the block is completely modular, all cables without exception are eliminated. Their number is as follows:

• one to power the motherboard (64 cm);
• one with two 8-pin (4+4) CPU power connectors (65.5 cm);
• two with two 8-pin (6 + 2) connectors for powering a PCI-E video card (50.5 cm);
• two with four power connectors for SATA devices (45.5 + 15.5 + 15.5 + 15.5 cm);
• one with three power connectors for IDE devices and one for FDD (45.5+15+15+15 cm).

There are no revelations in size, the length should be enough to assemble the system in a case with a lower power supply. The cable for powering the motherboard is in a nylon braid, the rest are flat. An interesting implementation of a processor power cable similar to video cards, when two connectors are located on one cable. This will not allow you to do serious overclocking, but you can connect a modern board on the same AMD X570 without tricks. As the saying goes, it’s better than nothing at all. The connectors are composite, apparently, so that you can connect motherboards with both 8 + 4 and 8 + 8 connectors, and at least somehow push them into the slots behind the pallet, where EPS12V cannot fit, which is important for cheap cases.

Outwardly, the block looks usually familiar: a black case and a wire grill of the same color with a yellow penny in the center, on which the company logo is depicted.

All the necessary connectors for connecting cables are located on the inner wall, each type has its own specific size or location of the key, and it is also signed, so it will not be confused when connected.

The capabilities of the device in question correspond to modern standards, which, perhaps, will be revised in the future due to the transition to the ATX12VO standard, which will leave only one +12 V line. So far, there are no complaints about the PPS-7500FC: full power per channel + 12V and combined 120 W at + 3.3V and + 5V. For standby voltage, 15 W is provided, and for archaic -12V, 3.6 W is provided.

The power supply is highly efficient, equipped with active PFC and supports a wide input mains voltage range. Of the declared protections, there are: from overload in power and current, from increased output voltage, from short circuit, from surges and surges of voltage and overheating. There is an automatic fan speed control.

Under the “hood” we see an effective platform based on a resonant converter in the high-voltage part and a synchronous rectifier in the low-voltage part with independent stabilization of output voltages.

Judging by the inscription on the sticker, the High Power platform is used, and the HP1-J750GD-F12C model served as the “donor”, but we could not find one on the manufacturer’s website. But there is HPS-750GD-F14C with very similar characteristics. True, it has nothing in common with our copy in terms of the layout of elements, so the question on the basis of what Polaris is built remains open.

In any case, the device is of high quality and no serious savings are observed. The input filter is partially implemented on the network connector, there is even a relay that turns off the thermistor, which limits the charge current of the input capacitance.

To cool the APFC elements and key transistors, a typical aluminum radiator with petal fins is provided in the upper part; an L-shaped plate is provided for the diode bridges. The synchronous rectifier is cooled both by the printed circuit board itself and by a pair of metal plates with petal fins at the ends.

The unit is controlled by the CM6901X controller responsible for the resonant converter and synchronous rectifier, paired with ICE3CPS01, on whose shoulders the APFC module was placed, located on separate scarves. The “duty” is performed on the SI8016HSP8 chip, and monitoring is carried out by the PS224 supervisor.

Low-voltage lines are made on a DC/DC converter with an APW7159C PWM controller, the elements of which are soldered on a separate board.

The input circuit is equipped with a 680 uF capacitor with an operating voltage of 400 V and a temperature of 105 ° C manufactured by Nichicon.

The remaining circuits contain Rubycon and Nippon Chemi-Con capacitances, there are polymer capacitors. And everything would be fine, but the Teapo components beloved by Chieftec are not forgotten, the presence of which in the power supplies of this company may indicate an increased speed of the cooling fan.

The detachable cable board is equipped with several polymer capacitors.

The soldering is of high quality, there are no “snot” and flux residues, and the Chieftec PPS-750FC is assembled very well.

A 120 mm PowerYear PY-1225M12S fan based on a sleeve with a nominal speed of 2000 rpm and a two-pin connection is responsible for cooling the structure. The airflow guide plate is made in the form of a triangle, which is the first time.

When starting the system and with a moderate gaming load, the impeller speed is 700 rpm, while the noise is not at all annoying and is easily leveled against the background of other PC components. If the unit is used with two adapters, then the speed will increase to 1250 rpm, and then there is no need to talk about silence. But at full load, the propeller spins up to 1600 rpm with all the consequences.

Test Methodology

The power supply was checked using a conventional system assembled from the following components:

• processor: Intel Core i5-8600K (4.3 GHz);
• motherboard: ASUS Maximus X Apex (Intel Z370);
• Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems;
• RAM: HyperX HX429C15PB3AK2/16 (2×8 GB, DDR4-2933@3200, 16-18-18-36-2T);
• video card: GeForce GTX 1080;
• drive: Kingston SSDNow UV400 480GB (480 GB, SATA 6Gb/s).

Testing was carried out in the Windows 10 x64 environment on an open stand. To create a gaming load on the system, the Valley benchmark was used with maximum graphics quality, and for additional load, LinX 0.6.7 was launched in parallel.

Also, for maximum load, the following system was assembled:

• processor: Intel Core i7-975 (3.33@4.02 GHz, Bclk 175 MHz);
• motherboard: ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer (Intel X58);
• cooler: Noctua NH-D14;
• RAM: Kingston KHX2000C8D3T1K3/6GX (3×2 GB, DDR3-2000@1750, 8-8-8-24);
• video cards: ASUS ENGTX295/2DI/1792MD3/A and Inno3D GeForce GTX 295 Platinum Edition (GeForce GTX 295);
• hard disk: Samsung HD502HJ (500 GB, 7200 rpm, SATA-II).

Here testing was carried out in the Windows 7 x64 HP environment on an open bench. The Tropics benchmark with 4x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering enabled under game load was used to load the system, and the LinX program with a 1024 MB task was used for additional load, while Tropics was launched with AA2x and AF16x. To increase the power consumption, the OCCT utility was used in full screen mode with a resolution of 1066×600 pixels.

To measure the total power consumption of the system, the Seasonic Power Angel was used, which can also measure the power factor, voltage and frequency in the network, the consumed current and the amount of energy spent per unit of time. Net power consumption calculated based on 80 Plus certification – i.e. possible efficiency of the device. Errors in such calculations can be 5%. The voltages were checked with a UNI-T UT70D digital multimeter.

The temperature was measured using the Scythe Kaze Master Pro panel, the sensors of which were located on the radiators inside the block and at a distance of 1 cm in front of the fan (#1) and behind the outer wall (#2).

For fan speed results, a UNI-T UT372 non-contact tachometer was used. The maximum speed was fixed for each of the power supply testing modes.

It should be borne in mind that such a technique at this stage is far from ideal and will be supplemented and changed as it is used.

Test results

The obtained data are entered in the table. In brackets for voltage are percent deviations from the norm, for power consumption – the approximate net load on the power supply.

*- without load.

Polaris PPS-750FC demonstrates overestimated voltages, but they do not even go beyond the 2% threshold, stability is good, drops are about a percent. The unit withstood an overload of almost 13% without problems. Well, as always, with excellent temperature indicators, we have increased fan speed, and this is with an efficiency close to 90%.

conclusions

I am glad that recently Cheftec has begun to pay more attention to energy efficient devices, releasing more and more models with the 80 Plus Gold certificate. She does not forget about the appearance of her solutions and the convenience of their use, including in the delivery kit longer trains than in older products. But what has remained unchanged is the use of aggressive cooling with high efficiency. Here she is true to herself and rarely deviates from her principles.

The considered Chieftec Polaris PPS-750FC is not bad for its capabilities, it has a nice design and a sufficient package for a quite powerful system. It can easily power a couple of video cards and withstand a slight overload, but the noise level in this mode leaves much to be desired. The model has just come out and has not yet appeared on free sale, but according to preliminary data, its cost on the domestic market will be about $ 100, which is not so much compared to modular competitors. If the noise level of the novelty does not meet personal requirements, you can pay attention to the products of the Chieftronic sub-brand, which, accordingly, will be a little more expensive.